Days of Future Passed
by Peregrine2
Summary: The suspicious death of a friend brings Cassie back to Chance Harbor.


Days of Future Passed-Cassie/Adam/Jane/Sam-T

Summary: The suspicious death of a friend brings Cassie back to Chance Harbor.

[Jane]

"Tell me about Great Grandma."

"She was very brave and strong."

"Like you?" I ask, knowing full well what her answer will be.

She smooths my hair. "More like you, Jane."

I hardly care that I share Great Grandma's mane of famous red gold curls, or that we have the same name. But even more than that, I have her power. I'm not sure Mom knows the extent of it, and it scares me. She always cautions me to respect and never misuse it, though I know she's abused it herself. Dark magic ages you, and seems to sap your sanity away each time it's used.

Mom would never say this, but I have seen it. I know she killed John Blackwell, and God knows how many other people who later came for her, wanting to steal it all away. And each time she's vanquished our foes, but part of her dies a little when it happens. I don't want to repeat her mistakes, because it lives in me too.

I peer through my mess of curls at my cracked mirror and wonder where my blue grey eyes come from. Certainly not from Mom, whose cerulean blue eyes challenge the sky itself. So they must be from my unnamed father, the one she never talks about. But I know it happened in high school, for Mom was barely 30, and could have passed as my sister. In fact, judging from my frown lines, I would soon get away with posing as her Mom.

She never talks about him, or any of the others in her Circle. But I learn things in random bursts, as her memories spill out and are eagerly lapped up by her nosy daughter, who thirsts for any tidbit that floats her way. I know her love for him is unchanged, but I never get the slightest hint of his face, for she blots him out as quickly as thoughts of him rise to the surface. And it's all pain and suffering, for I know what she sacrificed when she gave him up. Could he have regained his memories, and is yearning for her at this very moment? I extend myself, trying to pull him into focus even as she shoves him back into her memory box.

[Cassie]

My daughter thinks I don't know what she's doing, but I get it. I know her in ways unimagined, for she is me at the same age. I am exactly twice her age, yet mired in the past. I can only think of him and my breath catches, and I dare not utter or even think of his name, for she'll know in a flash. Not that she won't know the moment she lays eyes on him, for she is his mirror image. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful child, with Grandma's coloring and his eyes of ever changing colors. Eyes whose colors change with her moods, mercurial as they are. She is so much like him it's scary, there's not a doubt in anyone's mind when they see her. Sally and Melissa are the only ones who know, and they've been sworn to secrecy. I've grown to love them both as family, the sisters I never had. Melissa is a landscape gardener who moonlights as an herbalist, and is permanently entrenched in Salem to my north. Diana never resurfaced since that last time I saw her, and nobody has a clue where she is. I suspect my talented daughter could find her with a locator spell, but that's beside the point. And far as I know, the others are still in Chance Harbor. Faye and Jake have three towheaded boys with one near my daughter's age, and I don't know about Adam. Sally gossips, and says he is fast. Those are her grandmother's words, but I know what she means. After his marriage to Melissa failed, he started sleeping around and has never looked back. His father is happily married to my cousin Sam, and they have three daughters of their own. She is pregnant with her fourth, and I am secretly envious that she has snagged Adam's sexy father. Yes, I know exactly what my Mom saw in him, as I saw the same qualities in his equally hot son.

Sally likes to prime me with information, from the fact that Adam works out regularly and is seriously ripped. His hair is longer than he used to wear it, and he loves to charm the ladies with that slow smile that used to twist my insides. She recently sent me a text message with his photo, and I remember feeling hot and bothered seeing him shirtless on the beach below the pier where we used to make out. The rush of pure want scared me, and this was only a photo. God, I had to stay away at all costs, lest I make a total fool of myself over someone who'd forgotten everything we once had. That I remembered it all so vividly only added insult to injury.

[Adam]

The moment I heard the news, shock overcame me and I stumbled. "It can't be true," I said to my Dad in disbelief.

Sam came up and touched my shoulder. "I'm afraid it is."

Sally Matthews was dead, run over by a semi on the main road in town. "It can't be. She would hever…"

"Son, it wasn't suicide."

Not suicide, what did that mean? "How?"

Sam sighed. "It seems she was pushed into the street."

"Accidentally, right?"

My Dad shook his head. "There were a lot of people getting out of school and someone rushed at her."

"Did they catch him?" It had to be a guy, because what kind of woman would do something to one of Chance Harbor's most beloved teachers?

Sam said, "Nobody saw anything. It was over and done in an instant."

Which meant it had to be magic, and not the good kind. The Balcoins were still out there, hiding in the shadows. When Blackwell died, the four of them flitted away like ringwraiths. Without their sire around to underwrite their dirty deeds, there was no point in staying. But maybe things had shifted in their favor and they were back in action. "We have to call Cassie," I said hoarsely, "She'll know what to do."

Sam's mouth opened in protest but then she remembered. "Of course. She'll want to be here."

Cassie and I hadn't spoken in 17 years, but there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of her. Me, the guy who was hexed by Blackwell to forget, remembered it all. Dawn Chamberlain had spilled her guts one night in a drunken haze, and it all came flooding back. Damn! The way I had turned my back on her...the way I took up with Melissa...and the way I let that damned skull obsess me until we finally destroyed it...I had a lot to answer for.

[Sam]

I was a liar. I hated liars, so how could I lie to Ethan? He was a grandfather, and I'd deprived him of that for the last 17 years. How would he react when Jane came to light? It was bad enough that I'd kept this from Adam, but keeping it from my husband whom I adored? Thing is, he might understand the pact of the Blake witches. We kept trouble contained, and that baby had been trouble for Cassie from the get go. And now? She was a free spirit, power emanating from her in waves. She broadcasted it to everyone on a psychic wavelength, which included pretty much everyone in Salem and she'd light up the wharf in Chance Harbor. I wasn't sure where that strong personality came from, although that red-headed troublemaker Sibyl Balcoin came to mind. No telling when that bad penny would turn up, but she had a way of showing her face at the worst possible time. So I expected to see her any day now, poking her nose in where it didn't belong.


End file.
